As we learned yesterday, I am running out of steam only halfway through the post-every-day month (known to you hip young people as NaBloPoMo). But now, in a move I would energetically encourage in all my readers, one of you has sent in a couple of requests. This nice fellow, whose nom de nephew is Funky Man T, has some cooking questions:
"First, it would be most interesting to hear you address the topic of quick and easy stir fry sauces that can be made with plain (as opposed to pre-bottled) ingredients. Our stir fries tend to be fairly bland affairs (although we like the taste of plain veggies), and having a few recipes on hand to sauce them up would be swell. Since we eat gluten free, most of the bottled sauces available in the stores (like those yummy sounding peanut sauces) are either suspect or definitely off limits. But surely there's something simple we can make with rice vinegar and a little lemon, a little x and a little y...? Oh, and not too spicy, if that's in your repertoire.
"Second, I am never happy with my otherwise delicious pots of stew or chili after they've been frozen. In the lamb stew we thawed for dinner last night, for example, the potatoes and carrots had gone from firm to mealy. Since I don't remember my mother's frozen entrees tasting like this, I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong in the freezing process. Is there a right way to freeze and/or defrost stuff? Does it matter if the stew is still warm/hot when you put it in the freezer? Does it matter whether you patiently let it sit and defrost slowly as opposed to hungrily nuking or boiling it? Does anybody know what I'm talking about?"
These questions bring up several interesting issues. First, can I now rely exclusively on my readers to provide topics for me to write about? Like the Magic 8 Ball, I'm thinking that signs point to yes. So get cracking. Second, can I also rely on my readers to actually provide content about these topics? Again, I'm optimistic. So, weigh in, people. I know for a fact that I have many readers for whom food is a pet topic. I won't call you out by name, but L? G? J and N, C, N, D, A, anyone? You know who you are, and so do I.
I'll blather on, but you people, chime in too! Together, we can solve these dilemmas! Stay tuned for my answers. Your breath, it is bated, I can tell.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
Here we just call it bacon, eh.
What do the Scottish call scotch tape?
What do the Brazilians call brazil nuts?
What did they call old-style numerals back when they were new?
What do you call a cold hot dog?
These are some of those eternal dilemmas that are best left unsolved. But one is a dilemma no longer. A tepid frankfurter is just a dog. Or, if you want to be more specific, a dog of no particular temperature. And Tepid Frankfurter would be an awesome band name.
[Hey, I said I'd post every day in November. I didn't say you'd like it.]
What do the Brazilians call brazil nuts?
What did they call old-style numerals back when they were new?
What do you call a cold hot dog?
These are some of those eternal dilemmas that are best left unsolved. But one is a dilemma no longer. A tepid frankfurter is just a dog. Or, if you want to be more specific, a dog of no particular temperature. And Tepid Frankfurter would be an awesome band name.
[Hey, I said I'd post every day in November. I didn't say you'd like it.]
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Things a Cardiologist Once Told Me
My favorite thing she said was that supraventricular tachycardia is a benign condition. She said it several times, and it never got old. Another thing that I liked the sound of was, "Your EKG is perfectly normal." Here's the other highlights, as remembered, paraphrased, run though my brain a few times, out my fingers, and onto the keyboard. Some things may have been altered in translation:
"Up with His Highness Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany!
Down with Jaime Summers!
Now allow me to clarify: You should really avoid running like you're trying to catch the bionic woman. You'll never catch her, and sprinting that hard seems like it might bring on episodes of tachycardia in your case, especially if you're a little dehydrated. Stick with the sensible, non-delusional exercise, and keep on marching up and down hills like you're the Grand Old Duke of York. He would have made a great personal trainer if he hadn't died in 1827. Pilates is good too, even if His Highness never did it.
"If you do have another episode that doesn't end by itself in a minute or two, there are a few ways you might be able to stop it. Try taking a breath, holding it in, and then bearing down and straining hard. We in the medical field call this the PoopFace Maneuver. Or the Valsalva Maneuver. One of those.
"It's not much fun to plunge your head into a bucket of cold water, but it involves a lot less paperwork than going to the emergency room, and it might work just as well. The more parties you go to where there's bobbing for apples the more convenient this will be. You could consider keeping your bathtub full of cold water and apples all the time, both for impromptu parties and the occasional cardiac symptom. If you're having cardiac symptoms more often than you're having parties, call the office and make an appointment. Then we might want to think about putting you on some medication.
"Another thing that might stop an episode in progress is mashing your finger on one of the carotid arteries on either side of your neck. One or the other. You can try both, just for heavens' sake, not both at once.
"If none of these work to stop an episode of tachycardia, and it's gone on for 15 or 20 minutes, come to the emergency room. Come quicker if you're also having other symptoms, like dizziness, shortness of breath, nausea, or excessive sweating. You do not need to come to the ER if your only symptom is excessive sweatiness. In that case, just take a bath. Apples optional.
"You're probably just fine. We'll call you if there's any irregularity in the echocardiogram. Otherwise, see you in three months for a follow-up!"
On the whole, I was very impressed with everyone I saw there (the nurse practitioner, the med tech, and the doctor). The only time anyone missed a beat was when I was making my follow-up appointment and had to explain to the receptionist why I thought February 14th was an appropriate day to come to the cardiologist.
They were all so nice and friendly, I'm inclined to take them something for Valentine's Day, but I guess I probably shouldn't bring them decadent bon bons. Maybe slices of beet cut into heart shapes. Healthy and festive! Everyone loves a nice beet slice.
"Up with His Highness Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany!
Down with Jaime Summers!
Now allow me to clarify: You should really avoid running like you're trying to catch the bionic woman. You'll never catch her, and sprinting that hard seems like it might bring on episodes of tachycardia in your case, especially if you're a little dehydrated. Stick with the sensible, non-delusional exercise, and keep on marching up and down hills like you're the Grand Old Duke of York. He would have made a great personal trainer if he hadn't died in 1827. Pilates is good too, even if His Highness never did it.
"If you do have another episode that doesn't end by itself in a minute or two, there are a few ways you might be able to stop it. Try taking a breath, holding it in, and then bearing down and straining hard. We in the medical field call this the PoopFace Maneuver. Or the Valsalva Maneuver. One of those.
"It's not much fun to plunge your head into a bucket of cold water, but it involves a lot less paperwork than going to the emergency room, and it might work just as well. The more parties you go to where there's bobbing for apples the more convenient this will be. You could consider keeping your bathtub full of cold water and apples all the time, both for impromptu parties and the occasional cardiac symptom. If you're having cardiac symptoms more often than you're having parties, call the office and make an appointment. Then we might want to think about putting you on some medication.
"Another thing that might stop an episode in progress is mashing your finger on one of the carotid arteries on either side of your neck. One or the other. You can try both, just for heavens' sake, not both at once.
"If none of these work to stop an episode of tachycardia, and it's gone on for 15 or 20 minutes, come to the emergency room. Come quicker if you're also having other symptoms, like dizziness, shortness of breath, nausea, or excessive sweating. You do not need to come to the ER if your only symptom is excessive sweatiness. In that case, just take a bath. Apples optional.
"You're probably just fine. We'll call you if there's any irregularity in the echocardiogram. Otherwise, see you in three months for a follow-up!"
On the whole, I was very impressed with everyone I saw there (the nurse practitioner, the med tech, and the doctor). The only time anyone missed a beat was when I was making my follow-up appointment and had to explain to the receptionist why I thought February 14th was an appropriate day to come to the cardiologist.
They were all so nice and friendly, I'm inclined to take them something for Valentine's Day, but I guess I probably shouldn't bring them decadent bon bons. Maybe slices of beet cut into heart shapes. Healthy and festive! Everyone loves a nice beet slice.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Harnessing procrastination for good!
Well, it had to come to this. It was inevitable that after posting every day for weeks, I'd run out of steam eventually. Thank goodness for the internet and amusing things to link to. This might only be entertaining to the nerdiest among us (I find it even more addictive than the regular internet), but give it a shot. It's charitable, educational time wasting. The site gets advertisers to pay per click, and the goal is to define all kinds of obscure words correctly. The more words you get right, the more money they send to UN food aid. Win/win. I cannot stop playing. Last night, in a team effort, we got up to a score of 49. There was lots of guessing.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Pound-Foolish Oatmeal Bath
Reusing ziplock bags, hanging laundry to dry, brown-bagging your lunch, and avoiding the coffee shop are all sensible ways to save money and resources. But unchecked, penny-pinching can become an addiction, and the things that used to give you the Cheap Thrill just won't be enough any more. You find yourself doing cheaper and cheaper things, just to feel normal. Until one day, it just goes too far. The key to staying in Frugal territory and not straying into Bonkers is noticing when this starts to happen.
When you use commercial oatmeal-bath powder, you're surrounded by a soothing, milky liquid that'll make your skin feel like a well-bathed baby's. With homemade oatmeal powder, you'll find yourself sitting in liquid that looks too much like an excellent source of fiber to be something in which you should be bathing. And the post-bath aftermath is not pretty. Homemade oatmeal powder does not gracefully leave the tub with the bathwater. It settles to the bottom and stays there, lumpily. Once the tub is drained, it looks like the closet floor when the cat's mad at you. And just-post-bath, when you're all warm and pruney, is not an easy time to muster bathtub-cleaning energy. All this for a savings of (I'm guessing) seventy five cents per bath. So, learn from my experiment. Don't make your own unless you're dedicated enough to the idea to get an industrial-strength oatmeal pulverizer. And if you do, let me know so I can borrow it. I'll trade you some decrepit plastic bags, a cheese sandwich and some cloth napkins that are only a little stained.
When you use commercial oatmeal-bath powder, you're surrounded by a soothing, milky liquid that'll make your skin feel like a well-bathed baby's. With homemade oatmeal powder, you'll find yourself sitting in liquid that looks too much like an excellent source of fiber to be something in which you should be bathing. And the post-bath aftermath is not pretty. Homemade oatmeal powder does not gracefully leave the tub with the bathwater. It settles to the bottom and stays there, lumpily. Once the tub is drained, it looks like the closet floor when the cat's mad at you. And just-post-bath, when you're all warm and pruney, is not an easy time to muster bathtub-cleaning energy. All this for a savings of (I'm guessing) seventy five cents per bath. So, learn from my experiment. Don't make your own unless you're dedicated enough to the idea to get an industrial-strength oatmeal pulverizer. And if you do, let me know so I can borrow it. I'll trade you some decrepit plastic bags, a cheese sandwich and some cloth napkins that are only a little stained.
Monday, November 12, 2007
If you ate nothing else, it might feed you for a week.
I once volunteered to make the food for a gallery opening, and that's when I learned that cooking without a recipe might be fine for every-day cooking, but it is difficult to multiply into large quantities. How much is "some" times ten, when you're grocery shopping? How much is "until it seems right" when you're cooking huge amounts? So, when I had a chance to try some bulk cooking, I figured I should do some research, take lots of notes, and if it turned out well, I'd have something for future reference. So I made four lasagnas, and they did the job. They went together pretty well, they froze beautifully, thawed and baked well, were tasty for dinner, and even made a good midmorning snack the next day. That's pretty close to my mother's and my definition of the perfect dress: one you can wear, sleep in, and wear again.
So, tasty? Yes. Healthy? Could be worse. Convenient? Very: cook once, eat four times. Easy? It's all relative. But for a make-ahead, one-pot, protein-vegetable-starch meal, it's not bad. If you want less fat and salt, you could make your own thick white sauce with evaporated skim milk, flour, and butter. If you want it more proteiny-vegetably and less creamy-carby, I bet you could add more chicken, more carrots, and more mushrooms. There's already plenty of spinach.
Vast Amounts of Chicken Vegetable Lasagna
Makes 4 pans of lasagna. Each pan serves 4 with a side dish, 3 with nothing else.
20 ounces fresh mushrooms
2-3 cups grated raw carrots
2 large onions
1 head garlic
1 one-pound box De Cecco lasagna noodles
2 cups grated reduced fat 4 cheese Italian mix
3 split chicken breasts (one and a half chickens' worth)
32 oz frozen spinach
3 15 oz jars alfredo sauce (you will have some left over)
1 tsp each thyme, basil, and oregano
Take the spinach out of the freezer and set it aside to thaw. Cover the chicken breasts in water and bring to a boil. Simmer, covered, until just done, about half an hour. Remove from broth and let cool. Cut each breast in half (so the shreds aren't too long), shred the chicken with your fingers and refrigerate it until assembling the lasagnas.
Wash the mushrooms and carrots and peel the garlic and onions. Chop the onions and garlic, slice the mushrooms and grate the carrots. If you have a food processor languishing in the cupboard, this is the recipe it's been waiting for.
Get out your most giant skillet or frying pan. As you cook each vegetable, stir in plenty of black pepper and a little salt (the commercial alfredo sauce is pretty salty already). Saute the grated carrots in a little olive oil until they soften and the liquid evaporates. Set them aside. Saute the mushrooms in a little more oil until their liquid cooks off, and set them aside. Squeeze the spinach to get rid of the extra liquid and chop it. Saute the onions and garlic in olive oil until they soften and smell good, and then mix the spinach in. Add thyme, basil, and oregano to the spinach mixture, and saute it until the liquid cooks off. Set the spinach aside. At this point, you can refrigerate all the cooked vegetables and chicken and assemble the lasagnas the next day. Or just forge ahead! Just tidy up the kitchen before you do, so you have room to work.
Cook the lasagna noodles in lots of water until they're just bendy, but not soft enough that you'd want to eat them. Depending on the size of your pot, you might want to cook them in two batches so they don't stick together too much.
Set out 4 pans, and gather all the cooked vegetables, the jars of sauce, the cooked noodles, the chicken, and the grated cheese. Divide the chicken into two bowls, since there'll be two chicken layers.
put into each of the four pans, in order:
1/4 cup sauce in the bottom
2 noodles
1/4 of the spinach/onion mix
1/4 of one bowl of chicken
1/4 cup sauce
2 noodles
1/4 of the carrots
1/4 of the mushrooms
1/4 of the other bowl of chicken
1/2 cup sauce
2 noodles
1/4 cup sauce
1/2 cup grated cheese
Preheat to 400. If cooking immediately, bake 30 minutes, uncovered. Using disposable paper pans? Bake on a cookie sheet.
Wrap well and freeze. Thaw in fridge 20-24 hours. Remove from fridge and preheat oven to 400. Bake, covered in foil, for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 20 minutes more, or until brown and bubbly.
So, tasty? Yes. Healthy? Could be worse. Convenient? Very: cook once, eat four times. Easy? It's all relative. But for a make-ahead, one-pot, protein-vegetable-starch meal, it's not bad. If you want less fat and salt, you could make your own thick white sauce with evaporated skim milk, flour, and butter. If you want it more proteiny-vegetably and less creamy-carby, I bet you could add more chicken, more carrots, and more mushrooms. There's already plenty of spinach.
Vast Amounts of Chicken Vegetable Lasagna
Makes 4 pans of lasagna. Each pan serves 4 with a side dish, 3 with nothing else.
20 ounces fresh mushrooms
2-3 cups grated raw carrots
2 large onions
1 head garlic
1 one-pound box De Cecco lasagna noodles
2 cups grated reduced fat 4 cheese Italian mix
3 split chicken breasts (one and a half chickens' worth)
32 oz frozen spinach
3 15 oz jars alfredo sauce (you will have some left over)
1 tsp each thyme, basil, and oregano
Take the spinach out of the freezer and set it aside to thaw. Cover the chicken breasts in water and bring to a boil. Simmer, covered, until just done, about half an hour. Remove from broth and let cool. Cut each breast in half (so the shreds aren't too long), shred the chicken with your fingers and refrigerate it until assembling the lasagnas.
Wash the mushrooms and carrots and peel the garlic and onions. Chop the onions and garlic, slice the mushrooms and grate the carrots. If you have a food processor languishing in the cupboard, this is the recipe it's been waiting for.
Get out your most giant skillet or frying pan. As you cook each vegetable, stir in plenty of black pepper and a little salt (the commercial alfredo sauce is pretty salty already). Saute the grated carrots in a little olive oil until they soften and the liquid evaporates. Set them aside. Saute the mushrooms in a little more oil until their liquid cooks off, and set them aside. Squeeze the spinach to get rid of the extra liquid and chop it. Saute the onions and garlic in olive oil until they soften and smell good, and then mix the spinach in. Add thyme, basil, and oregano to the spinach mixture, and saute it until the liquid cooks off. Set the spinach aside. At this point, you can refrigerate all the cooked vegetables and chicken and assemble the lasagnas the next day. Or just forge ahead! Just tidy up the kitchen before you do, so you have room to work.
Cook the lasagna noodles in lots of water until they're just bendy, but not soft enough that you'd want to eat them. Depending on the size of your pot, you might want to cook them in two batches so they don't stick together too much.
Set out 4 pans, and gather all the cooked vegetables, the jars of sauce, the cooked noodles, the chicken, and the grated cheese. Divide the chicken into two bowls, since there'll be two chicken layers.
put into each of the four pans, in order:
1/4 cup sauce in the bottom
2 noodles
1/4 of the spinach/onion mix
1/4 of one bowl of chicken
1/4 cup sauce
2 noodles
1/4 of the carrots
1/4 of the mushrooms
1/4 of the other bowl of chicken
1/2 cup sauce
2 noodles
1/4 cup sauce
1/2 cup grated cheese
Preheat to 400. If cooking immediately, bake 30 minutes, uncovered. Using disposable paper pans? Bake on a cookie sheet.
Wrap well and freeze. Thaw in fridge 20-24 hours. Remove from fridge and preheat oven to 400. Bake, covered in foil, for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 20 minutes more, or until brown and bubbly.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Cheaper than those fancy Ant Farms
Five years after we said goodbye to our sweet cat (nothing more horrible than that ride home from the vet's with an empty carrier), we decided that we're ready to move on. We got a pet! And just so it wouldn't be lonely while we're gone during the day, we decided to get two more to keep it company.
Although, they're actually not so much pets as captives, and I didn't realize we had them until it was too late. They're lady bugs, and they're sealed between the window and the plastic film we just put up to try to stop the cold breezes that flow from around the frame. I figure they'll either make a different tableau vivant of suffering every day until they finally succumb and make a tableau mort, or else they'll find it the perfect environment to raise a thousand little baby lady bugs (which might properly be called... girl bugs? young lady bugs?). I'll let you know if we spend the winter watching our window fill with drifts and layers of red-orange crawling things. On the positive side, they'll probably increase the R value of the window by quite a lot.
Although, they're actually not so much pets as captives, and I didn't realize we had them until it was too late. They're lady bugs, and they're sealed between the window and the plastic film we just put up to try to stop the cold breezes that flow from around the frame. I figure they'll either make a different tableau vivant of suffering every day until they finally succumb and make a tableau mort, or else they'll find it the perfect environment to raise a thousand little baby lady bugs (which might properly be called... girl bugs? young lady bugs?). I'll let you know if we spend the winter watching our window fill with drifts and layers of red-orange crawling things. On the positive side, they'll probably increase the R value of the window by quite a lot.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Bipedal Avisual Communication Techniques
I don't like the talking to strangers on the phone at the best of times. I'd much rather write or talk face-to-face. With writing, you get to think about what you're saying, and make sure it's really what you mean. With face-to-face talking, you get to use body language and facial expressions, and you get to see the other person's too (it is true that I've found myself gesturing into the void while on the phone, but I do realize that the other person can't see me. Usually). On the phone with strangers, I feel like I'm trying to do sign language blindfolded, and only using my feet.
And another thing I don't really enjoy is dealing with the health insurance company. I'm always sort of afraid that I won't be able to find the secret number and the right code and then they'll just say, "Right. Now you've done it. We're breaking up with you. You owe us sixty-five thousand four hundred twenty-two dollars and thirty-four cents for all the medical care you've ever gotten and some you haven't. Payable immediately. No credit cards."
So, right there are two things that tend to cause me anxiety and increase my heart rate. Therefore, it really was funny that I was on the phone to the strangers at the health insurance company, trying to find out the name of a cardiologist that I could talk to about my heart condition. You know, the heart condition that makes my heart beat really really fast sometimes. Maybe this is really some kind of exposure therapy. What doesn't kill you makes you... anxious. I think that's how that goes.
Update:
Thanks to another Medical Friend and some blatant name dropping (of her name, by me, to more Strangers On The Phone), I have an appointment next week with our local rock star cardiologist. Moral of the story for this week: make friends with Medical People. It's possible that I would have gotten right into the ER and to see the rock star with no intervention, but as I said, I don't plan to repeat this experiment. So we'll never know.
And another thing I don't really enjoy is dealing with the health insurance company. I'm always sort of afraid that I won't be able to find the secret number and the right code and then they'll just say, "Right. Now you've done it. We're breaking up with you. You owe us sixty-five thousand four hundred twenty-two dollars and thirty-four cents for all the medical care you've ever gotten and some you haven't. Payable immediately. No credit cards."
So, right there are two things that tend to cause me anxiety and increase my heart rate. Therefore, it really was funny that I was on the phone to the strangers at the health insurance company, trying to find out the name of a cardiologist that I could talk to about my heart condition. You know, the heart condition that makes my heart beat really really fast sometimes. Maybe this is really some kind of exposure therapy. What doesn't kill you makes you... anxious. I think that's how that goes.
Update:
Thanks to another Medical Friend and some blatant name dropping (of her name, by me, to more Strangers On The Phone), I have an appointment next week with our local rock star cardiologist. Moral of the story for this week: make friends with Medical People. It's possible that I would have gotten right into the ER and to see the rock star with no intervention, but as I said, I don't plan to repeat this experiment. So we'll never know.
Friday, November 09, 2007
I put the... um... tack in tachycardia!
If you ever have a choice to make, I recommend going to the emergency room while everyone else in the area is watching a much-anticipated sporting event. Five minutes after walking through the doors, I was being handed a hospital gown. It's possible they let me in so quickly because my heart rate was 203 and had been for half an hour, but I think it was the game. It also didn't hurt that the friend who brought me in did a little restrained waving-around of medical credentials and an understated display of Doctor Lingo.
Adenosine, delivered through an IV, is what they use to slow down your heart. It took me from wappawappawappawappa to bubgub, bubgub, bubgub within five minutes or so. During those minutes, I had a sensation (that some people both pay and line up for) that the top of my head and the bottom of my stomach were moving rapidly away from each other. And I didn't even have to strap myself into something called Invertigo!! or The Superdooperlooper!!! to do it. And health insurance will probably cover my experience. I hear they've mostly stopped paying for roller coasters, cheap bastards.
So they took a couple of EKGs and some blood, left me hooked up to some monitors and a saline drip, and things quieted down (by this time, the Chief Foot Squeezer and Director of Hand Holding had arrived on his appointed rounds).
Half an hour later, the adenosine jitters (new band name!) had worn off, I was feeling normal again, and my pulse was stable. The doctors and staff all went off to other crises, and Our Medical Friend took off too, having helped me eavesdrop on all the technical conversations people were having about me around my head. I had some time to look around and get a little bored, and I realized why they put all the monitors up behind the head of the hospital bed, where the patient can't see them. One, it's easier for the staff to see. Two, it reduces the chance that wiseacre patients will try to mess with the results. By craning my head back, and looking at the monitor upside-down, I could see the various displays: heart rate, respiration, and a third thing we never deciphered. The device that monitors breathing shows your inhales and exhales as ups and downs on a chart in real time, so it's a bit like having an etch-a-sketch that you can control with your breath. You could draw... a mountain. Or a... mountain range. A plateau, perhaps. I decided not to tempt fate by drawing anything on purpose, but I did make a passable silhouette of the Himalayas by giggling about the possibilities.
Two hours later, we were debating whether or not, "I'm hungry and bored!" was enough of a reason to push the Nurse Call button. We decided not. So the Brow Soother just sidled over to the nurses' station, and, as he put it, "I was a real jerk. I made a big stink about how this service is appalling, and who do you people think you are, and Do You Know Who I Am."* Guaranteed results, every time. After his chat with The Ladies In Smocks, he reported that the blood tests were back and the doctor would be in any minute.
Well, allow me to translate. Any minute = a very specific minute, actually. It's a minute at least three-quarters of an hour from now. So we settled in again and got some ill-fated crackers out of the vending machine. I'm usually a wholehearted proponent of the five-second rule (clinical debunking or no clinical debunking), but I had no problem overruling it when the emergency room floor was the floor in question. Unbidden, images of diseased bits of other people hitting that floor swarmed into my head. Luckily, my Personal Attendant was there to throw away the crackers and hand me some hand sanitizer. A floor-related bonus: they gave me free socks so my feet wouldn't touch the floor when I used the Portable Facilities for Invalids. I'm usually a good reuser/recycler, but those socks hit the trash as soon as I took them off.
During this lull, the Much-Anticipated Sporting Event ended. I know this because we could hear the chatter at the nurses' station (apparently the guys in X-Ray were watching the game. They would have the best AV equipment, I suppose). I also know this because in my hospital room, on the other side of the curtain from Club Anna, there entered a man who thought he might have had a stroke, but didn't want to miss the end of the game, so he waited to come in. I wanted to go throttle him, but I was tied down by all my wires, and anyway, he might have just had a stroke. Not nice to kick the Unseen Roommates while they're down.
They dealt with him (he sounded like he'd be okay), sent him off for further tests, and I got a new Unseen Roommate. This one was a 96-year-old Italian man who was having complications from diabetes. He couldn't hear very well, he couldn't speak English that well, and the nurse who was trying to talk to him had a New England accent so thick you could stand a spoon in it. I was trying to think of the Italian for, "does your stomach hurt" and "do you check your sugar regularly," which I had no chance of doing. I would have been more help translating what the nurse was saying into Very Loud Middle-American English (I minored in it in college). The most Italian I could think up was "Buona fortuna, signore!" which I did not end up having the nerve to yell out from behind my curtain as he was wheeled away for more testing.
Finally, the doctor came back and gave us the reports and the official diagnosis: Supraventricular Tachycardia (words so long, spell check gets nervous). All the blood tests came back normal, but I forgot to ask what it was they were testing for, so while the doctor apparently got some helpful information, all I know is that I am normal in several unspecified ways. I can't think what they might be. I did get the important stuff, though. They told me that my heart is healthy, just a little differently constructed than most, and I should see a cardiologist who can do more tests (the constant refrain of the ER). The tachycardia episodes can be controlled either with taking heart medicine forever or, if that doesn't work, they can send a photon torpedo up through my artery to my heart to zap the offending cells. I'm pretty sure it was a photon torpedo. Something aggressive and fancy sounding, anyway. Between the two options, I'm really hoping the cardiologist recommends some yoga and a positive attitude. But I'm not holding my breath (I heard that was bad for you anyway).
And then I was discharged and we were free to go. In five minutes, we went from a brightly-lit hospital room, surrounded by beeps and chatter and hurrying staff, to walking home alone down the quiet, dark streets of our neighborhood. Four blocks later, we were back in our kitchen where the same mail that had been on the table at noon still was and the crock pot had dinner ready. The only thing that reminded me of what I'd been doing for the last three hours was that I kept finding more sticky monitoring patches to remove from my body. When they monitor you, they really monitor you: arms! legs! belly! chest! Four days, two showers and a bath later, I'm only 94% sure that I got them all.
*Anyone who knows The Brow Soother knows I'm kidding, but on the off chance I have any readers I'm not related to, he's polite to a fault, and would no more raise his voice to a pack of friendly nurses than he would willingly drink a giant mocha-hazelccino with caramel and extra sprinkles. That's my drink.
Adenosine, delivered through an IV, is what they use to slow down your heart. It took me from wappawappawappawappa to bubgub, bubgub, bubgub within five minutes or so. During those minutes, I had a sensation (that some people both pay and line up for) that the top of my head and the bottom of my stomach were moving rapidly away from each other. And I didn't even have to strap myself into something called Invertigo!! or The Superdooperlooper!!! to do it. And health insurance will probably cover my experience. I hear they've mostly stopped paying for roller coasters, cheap bastards.
So they took a couple of EKGs and some blood, left me hooked up to some monitors and a saline drip, and things quieted down (by this time, the Chief Foot Squeezer and Director of Hand Holding had arrived on his appointed rounds).
Half an hour later, the adenosine jitters (new band name!) had worn off, I was feeling normal again, and my pulse was stable. The doctors and staff all went off to other crises, and Our Medical Friend took off too, having helped me eavesdrop on all the technical conversations people were having about me around my head. I had some time to look around and get a little bored, and I realized why they put all the monitors up behind the head of the hospital bed, where the patient can't see them. One, it's easier for the staff to see. Two, it reduces the chance that wiseacre patients will try to mess with the results. By craning my head back, and looking at the monitor upside-down, I could see the various displays: heart rate, respiration, and a third thing we never deciphered. The device that monitors breathing shows your inhales and exhales as ups and downs on a chart in real time, so it's a bit like having an etch-a-sketch that you can control with your breath. You could draw... a mountain. Or a... mountain range. A plateau, perhaps. I decided not to tempt fate by drawing anything on purpose, but I did make a passable silhouette of the Himalayas by giggling about the possibilities.
Two hours later, we were debating whether or not, "I'm hungry and bored!" was enough of a reason to push the Nurse Call button. We decided not. So the Brow Soother just sidled over to the nurses' station, and, as he put it, "I was a real jerk. I made a big stink about how this service is appalling, and who do you people think you are, and Do You Know Who I Am."* Guaranteed results, every time. After his chat with The Ladies In Smocks, he reported that the blood tests were back and the doctor would be in any minute.
Well, allow me to translate. Any minute = a very specific minute, actually. It's a minute at least three-quarters of an hour from now. So we settled in again and got some ill-fated crackers out of the vending machine. I'm usually a wholehearted proponent of the five-second rule (clinical debunking or no clinical debunking), but I had no problem overruling it when the emergency room floor was the floor in question. Unbidden, images of diseased bits of other people hitting that floor swarmed into my head. Luckily, my Personal Attendant was there to throw away the crackers and hand me some hand sanitizer. A floor-related bonus: they gave me free socks so my feet wouldn't touch the floor when I used the Portable Facilities for Invalids. I'm usually a good reuser/recycler, but those socks hit the trash as soon as I took them off.
During this lull, the Much-Anticipated Sporting Event ended. I know this because we could hear the chatter at the nurses' station (apparently the guys in X-Ray were watching the game. They would have the best AV equipment, I suppose). I also know this because in my hospital room, on the other side of the curtain from Club Anna, there entered a man who thought he might have had a stroke, but didn't want to miss the end of the game, so he waited to come in. I wanted to go throttle him, but I was tied down by all my wires, and anyway, he might have just had a stroke. Not nice to kick the Unseen Roommates while they're down.
They dealt with him (he sounded like he'd be okay), sent him off for further tests, and I got a new Unseen Roommate. This one was a 96-year-old Italian man who was having complications from diabetes. He couldn't hear very well, he couldn't speak English that well, and the nurse who was trying to talk to him had a New England accent so thick you could stand a spoon in it. I was trying to think of the Italian for, "does your stomach hurt" and "do you check your sugar regularly," which I had no chance of doing. I would have been more help translating what the nurse was saying into Very Loud Middle-American English (I minored in it in college). The most Italian I could think up was "Buona fortuna, signore!" which I did not end up having the nerve to yell out from behind my curtain as he was wheeled away for more testing.
Finally, the doctor came back and gave us the reports and the official diagnosis: Supraventricular Tachycardia (words so long, spell check gets nervous). All the blood tests came back normal, but I forgot to ask what it was they were testing for, so while the doctor apparently got some helpful information, all I know is that I am normal in several unspecified ways. I can't think what they might be. I did get the important stuff, though. They told me that my heart is healthy, just a little differently constructed than most, and I should see a cardiologist who can do more tests (the constant refrain of the ER). The tachycardia episodes can be controlled either with taking heart medicine forever or, if that doesn't work, they can send a photon torpedo up through my artery to my heart to zap the offending cells. I'm pretty sure it was a photon torpedo. Something aggressive and fancy sounding, anyway. Between the two options, I'm really hoping the cardiologist recommends some yoga and a positive attitude. But I'm not holding my breath (I heard that was bad for you anyway).
And then I was discharged and we were free to go. In five minutes, we went from a brightly-lit hospital room, surrounded by beeps and chatter and hurrying staff, to walking home alone down the quiet, dark streets of our neighborhood. Four blocks later, we were back in our kitchen where the same mail that had been on the table at noon still was and the crock pot had dinner ready. The only thing that reminded me of what I'd been doing for the last three hours was that I kept finding more sticky monitoring patches to remove from my body. When they monitor you, they really monitor you: arms! legs! belly! chest! Four days, two showers and a bath later, I'm only 94% sure that I got them all.
*Anyone who knows The Brow Soother knows I'm kidding, but on the off chance I have any readers I'm not related to, he's polite to a fault, and would no more raise his voice to a pack of friendly nurses than he would willingly drink a giant mocha-hazelccino with caramel and extra sprinkles. That's my drink.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Mmmm.
The Plan:
7:30: "Time for breakfast! Tra la!"
-Whole Grain Toast, Peanut Butter, Marmalade, Tea
12:30 "Oh Boy, Lunch!"
-Vegetable Soup, Toast, Cheese
7:30 "Dinner's Ready!"
-Sweet Potatoes, Chicken, Chard
The Reality So Far:
7:30: "Time for breakfast! Tra la!"
-Whole Grain Toast, Peanut Butter, Marmalade, Tea
10:30: "My stomach is digesting itself from the inside!"
-Two Pieces of Cold Vegetable Lasagna, Eaten Out Of Hand Without Benefit of Utensils
Apparently they mean it when they say muscle burns more calories than fat. And apparently, my muscles like pasta. Only two hours till lunch!
7:30: "Time for breakfast! Tra la!"
-Whole Grain Toast, Peanut Butter, Marmalade, Tea
12:30 "Oh Boy, Lunch!"
-Vegetable Soup, Toast, Cheese
7:30 "Dinner's Ready!"
-Sweet Potatoes, Chicken, Chard
The Reality So Far:
7:30: "Time for breakfast! Tra la!"
-Whole Grain Toast, Peanut Butter, Marmalade, Tea
10:30: "My stomach is digesting itself from the inside!"
-Two Pieces of Cold Vegetable Lasagna, Eaten Out Of Hand Without Benefit of Utensils
Apparently they mean it when they say muscle burns more calories than fat. And apparently, my muscles like pasta. Only two hours till lunch!
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Standards: Down. Spirits: Up
So, usually I "entertain" you with hilarious tales of tedious kitchen tasks, but please bear with me through a temporary change in programming:
How to Get Good Takeout
Did you know that those hot roasted chickens in the grocery store usually have the time they were cooked printed on their price tags? I didn't. Did you know that someone thinks it's a good idea to cook a chicken at noon and leave it in the warming case until seven forty five? I didn't know that either, but luckily I learned both these things tonight before I made the final call on Which Chicken Shall Be My Chicken, and so I was able to chose a relatively sprightly one that was cooked at six. And we ate it! And I feel less hungry! Hooray!
How to Get Good Takeout
Did you know that those hot roasted chickens in the grocery store usually have the time they were cooked printed on their price tags? I didn't. Did you know that someone thinks it's a good idea to cook a chicken at noon and leave it in the warming case until seven forty five? I didn't know that either, but luckily I learned both these things tonight before I made the final call on Which Chicken Shall Be My Chicken, and so I was able to chose a relatively sprightly one that was cooked at six. And we ate it! And I feel less hungry! Hooray!
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Unnatural Carrot Manipulation
So, say you scrubbed a whole bunch of carrots for the crock pot (dinner) and a pot of soup (lunch). And say there was one left over and it got left on the counter. Say you saw it there later and didn't really feel like getting a whole ziplock bag out just for one measly carrot. And say it stayed there for two days. It would be pretty floppy, yeah? Yeah. Very floppy. So floppy, you could roll it up into a spongy orange spiral. And then you could hold the spiral closed with a rubber band. Wouldn't you then wonder if you could rehydrate that rolled-up carrot, so it would be crunchy and carrotty but still all curly? Wouldn't that possibility open up a whole new world of wacky vegetable garnishes? Yes. You would and it would.
Unfortunately, I have to stop you in your tracks right there. No more building castles in the sky with manhandled carrots. It doesn't work. You might put the rolled up, rubber-banded carrot in a bowl of water overnight, but all you'd find in the morning would be an indignant (if crisp), straight carrot, lying next to a bowl of water and a discarded rubber band. But comfort yourself with this: when you get a motion-activated video camera with slo-mo playback, won't a repeat of this experiment be fun? And also, if you and your crime-fighting partner find yourselves trapped in mortal peril with a floppy carrot and some water, and MacGyver has already knocked himself out with a contraption made of a post-it note and some ham, I'm sure you can think of a way to harness the Escaping Power of The Root to free yourself. Good luck.
Unfortunately, I have to stop you in your tracks right there. No more building castles in the sky with manhandled carrots. It doesn't work. You might put the rolled up, rubber-banded carrot in a bowl of water overnight, but all you'd find in the morning would be an indignant (if crisp), straight carrot, lying next to a bowl of water and a discarded rubber band. But comfort yourself with this: when you get a motion-activated video camera with slo-mo playback, won't a repeat of this experiment be fun? And also, if you and your crime-fighting partner find yourselves trapped in mortal peril with a floppy carrot and some water, and MacGyver has already knocked himself out with a contraption made of a post-it note and some ham, I'm sure you can think of a way to harness the Escaping Power of The Root to free yourself. Good luck.
Monday, November 05, 2007
If I blog it, maybe I'll do it.
The problem is: if there's no predictable, tangible consequence for not doing something or reward for doing it, it's likely I will not do it. It's not that I confidently decide that it's not worth doing, and free myself from the task altogether, it's more that I think it should be done, it's just not important enough to do This Minute. So I'll do it Some Day. And here, fill in your own platitudes about This Minute being all we have, and there's no such day as Some Day. I know, I know. So, if nothing else helps, maybe the internet will. Time for some embarrassing true confessions.
There are clothes in my mending heap that have been there for ten years. Many of them only need buttons or hems.
We moved here a year and a half ago and there are still boxes I haven't unpacked. I have rooted through them once or twice, looking for things, but they are still there, lurking and glowering.
There are plants in nursery pots in the back yard, staring longingly at their future dirt, trying to grow some sort of ambulatory bio-mechanism, so they can just plant themselves already.
I have a huge pile of papers that has been through three moves. The category? Not Trash, Not Urgent, To Be Gone Through.
However, in the "I'm not so bad" category:
1) We have no cats. Not even one, much less the 47 you might guess.
2) I brush my hair at least every (other) day, so I don't ever give the crazy-lady-unintentional-dreadlocks a chance to get established.
3) I own many hats, but none of them are made of foil.
There are clothes in my mending heap that have been there for ten years. Many of them only need buttons or hems.
We moved here a year and a half ago and there are still boxes I haven't unpacked. I have rooted through them once or twice, looking for things, but they are still there, lurking and glowering.
There are plants in nursery pots in the back yard, staring longingly at their future dirt, trying to grow some sort of ambulatory bio-mechanism, so they can just plant themselves already.
I have a huge pile of papers that has been through three moves. The category? Not Trash, Not Urgent, To Be Gone Through.
However, in the "I'm not so bad" category:
1) We have no cats. Not even one, much less the 47 you might guess.
2) I brush my hair at least every (other) day, so I don't ever give the crazy-lady-unintentional-dreadlocks a chance to get established.
3) I own many hats, but none of them are made of foil.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Curry, Improved Upon
I was going to be so scientific. Hypothesis, experiment, analysis, new hypothesis, new experiment, conclusion. Well. I got most of the way there, and then my second experiment was a little more experimental than I expected. But the results were happy, if not suitable for peer review. Now, I can comfortably say that not only do I expect this recipe to work as written (probably), I can assure you that if you add an unexpected two hours on the "keep warm" setting at the end of the total crockpot time, and dash in the door at an hour you thought would be well into the post-dinner period, just pick up with the recipe as if it were all going to plan, and it will still work (definitely). Good old crock.
Crock Pot Thai Chicken Curry
4 chicken thighs with bones and skin (skin optional. I couldn't find any skinless with bones )
5 carrots, chunked (2 cups)
5 small potatoes, chunked (3 cups)
2 small onions, chunked (2 cups)
1 can coconut milk
10 very thin slices ginger (ginger doesn't break down as much as you'd think in the crock)
8 whole garlic cloves
Mix up seasonings in a bowl:
3 T green curry paste
1/4 c fish sauce
1 T sugar
2T flour
a frozen pepper puck
Mix up seasonings, and set them aside for later. Put vegetables and coconut milk in crock pot. Lay the chicken on top and set it for 5 hours on low. After 4.5 hours, come home. Start the rice cooker and turn the crock pot to high. Lift out chicken and scoop out veg with a slotted spoon. Heat up the bowl of seasoning mix in the microwave. Mix it into the curry. Microwave the veg to get them hot again and put them back in, and cover. If you want, mix some freshly steamed or nuked vegetables into the curry (scallions, peppers, green beans, peas, broccoli, asparagus, etc). Debone and de-skin and de-knuckle the chicken, and cut it across the grain (so you don't get long straggly stringy chicken wads). Lay the chopped chicken on the curry. Mix gently and serve with rice.
Crock Pot Thai Chicken Curry
4 chicken thighs with bones and skin (skin optional. I couldn't find any skinless with bones )
5 carrots, chunked (2 cups)
5 small potatoes, chunked (3 cups)
2 small onions, chunked (2 cups)
1 can coconut milk
10 very thin slices ginger (ginger doesn't break down as much as you'd think in the crock)
8 whole garlic cloves
Mix up seasonings in a bowl:
3 T green curry paste
1/4 c fish sauce
1 T sugar
2T flour
a frozen pepper puck
Mix up seasonings, and set them aside for later. Put vegetables and coconut milk in crock pot. Lay the chicken on top and set it for 5 hours on low. After 4.5 hours, come home. Start the rice cooker and turn the crock pot to high. Lift out chicken and scoop out veg with a slotted spoon. Heat up the bowl of seasoning mix in the microwave. Mix it into the curry. Microwave the veg to get them hot again and put them back in, and cover. If you want, mix some freshly steamed or nuked vegetables into the curry (scallions, peppers, green beans, peas, broccoli, asparagus, etc). Debone and de-skin and de-knuckle the chicken, and cut it across the grain (so you don't get long straggly stringy chicken wads). Lay the chopped chicken on the curry. Mix gently and serve with rice.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Biscuits
Homemade biscuits should be better appreciated for the efficient happiness-delivery vehicles that they are. They make the house smell wonderful, they're decadent enough to be special, and with small variations, they can make breakfast, dinner or dessert feel like a celebration. And, most importantly, they're easy. It only takes about half an hour to make them with things you tend to have hanging around already (or, if you don't bake much, you only need to buy flour and baking powder once to have many, many potential batches of biscuits in the house).
They're also adaptable to the whims and ingredients of the moment. You can temper decadence with virtue (an approach that, I admit, usually makes my chin go up and my eyebrows go down) by adding chopped dried fruit, wheat germ, and/or whole wheat flour. You can make regular cut-out biscuits, or add a little more liquid, skip the kneading and cutting, and make drop biscuits. You can use all different kinds of fat, which will change the texture, but they will still be biscuits, and therefore still delicious. I, personally, have used butter, chicken fat, pork fat, and bacon drippings (and I once read a recipe which mentioned bear fat). When you buy happy meat and organic butter, it seems ridiculous to pour one cup of organic free-range animal fat into the garbage, just to pay three dollars for another cup of organic free-range animal fat.
The drawbacks to biscuits are two, minor, and now, solved. They are:
1) Biscuits are best eaten within hours of being baked, so trying to be all labor-saving and baking up a big batch doesn't work that well.
2) Which recipe among thousands of vastly varying recipes is the One to Use?
Problem one solved: after cutting out all your biscuits, bake what you think your family will eat over the next four hours, and freeze the rest. When you want biscuits again, stick the frozen, cut-out biscuits in the oven at 400° for 20 minutes. I know that this works well with biscuits that are an inch thick and two inches square when raw. Results may vary if you make thicker or wider biscuits, or if you make cute shapes with protruding bits.
Problem two solved:
While I'm an improvisational cook, I'm usually a by-the-book baker, because I never feel like I understand the physics involved well enough to improvise. But yesterday, googling around for a recipe for spicy, cheesy biscuits, I was getting unsatisfactory results, so I gave up, pooled the all of the internet's various opinions and my own experiences and prejudices, and came up with this recipe. It resulted in the best biscuits I can remember eating since the after-school "biskies" my mother would make when I was in elementary school and we lived on Dairy Road (our garage was built of stone and seemed ancient to me. I remember being pretty convinced it was an ancient relic of the dairy our street was named for. I realize it was maybe too conveniently car-sized for that to be true). Anyway, in honor of that house, my mother, and dairy products in general:
Dairy Road Biscuits
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick cold butter
3/4 cup cold 1% milk
Preheat the oven to 400°. Mix the dry ingredients together. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients in pats, and then attack it all with a pastry cutter (one of those many-wired tools that looks like a cross between a whisk and a horseshoe with a handle). Some people use two knives for this, some love the food processor, and you can please yourself. Just get it so that the biggest pieces of butter are the size of a bean, and most of them are smaller. Pour the milk into the bowl, and quickly and lightly mix it until it starts to cluster together, with a few stray crumbs. Turn it out, crumbs and all, onto a floured board and pat it into a rough rectangle that's about two inches thick. Fold it in half and press it down to two inches thick again, patting and poking here and there to help it keep a square or rectangular shape. Do this three more times, for a total of four fold-and-flattens. Now flatten it even further, until it's about an inch thick.
Now cut it into biscuits. I just use a sharp knife and cut it into 2" squares, but if you want to cut it into little shapes with cookie cutters, that would probably work too. Whatever method you use, don't saw or twist, just use a firm, definitive downward motion, so that they rise right. Using cookie cutters does have the benefit of leaving you with odd shaped scraps, which can be baked along with the cute shapes and will then need tidying up, which is a duty that traditionally falls to the cook. And sometimes it falls to the the cook along with a cup of tea and a catalog filled with more cute cookie cutter shapes, and the circle of life continues.
If you want to freeze some to bake later, do that now before the butter starts to warm up. Stick the to-be-postponed biscuits on a wax-papered plate or cookie sheet in the freezer. Once they're frozen solid, put them in a freezer bag.
To bake them now, put the biscuits on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes or so (another reason to love biscuits: they're self-greasing!). Once they're done, you can turn off the oven and hold them in there for 10 minutes or so, or until you're almost ready to eat. In the cooling oven, they'll stay hot and keep getting crispier. Out of the oven, they'll just begin their quick trip first to coldness, then to dullness, and then to staleness. Holding them in a basket and a napkin is a good option for during the meal, but the longer you do that, the more they'll steam themselves out of crispness.
Gosh. I sure went on and on, didn't I? Kind of makes it look complicated, doesn't it? Here's the short version:
Preheat the oven to 400°. Mix the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter until the largest pieces are the size of beans. Gently stir in the milk. Turn it out onto a floured board and knead briefly. Roll out to 1" thick, and cut into biscuits. Bake 15 minutes.
That's more like it.
They're also adaptable to the whims and ingredients of the moment. You can temper decadence with virtue (an approach that, I admit, usually makes my chin go up and my eyebrows go down) by adding chopped dried fruit, wheat germ, and/or whole wheat flour. You can make regular cut-out biscuits, or add a little more liquid, skip the kneading and cutting, and make drop biscuits. You can use all different kinds of fat, which will change the texture, but they will still be biscuits, and therefore still delicious. I, personally, have used butter, chicken fat, pork fat, and bacon drippings (and I once read a recipe which mentioned bear fat). When you buy happy meat and organic butter, it seems ridiculous to pour one cup of organic free-range animal fat into the garbage, just to pay three dollars for another cup of organic free-range animal fat.
The drawbacks to biscuits are two, minor, and now, solved. They are:
1) Biscuits are best eaten within hours of being baked, so trying to be all labor-saving and baking up a big batch doesn't work that well.
2) Which recipe among thousands of vastly varying recipes is the One to Use?
Problem one solved: after cutting out all your biscuits, bake what you think your family will eat over the next four hours, and freeze the rest. When you want biscuits again, stick the frozen, cut-out biscuits in the oven at 400° for 20 minutes. I know that this works well with biscuits that are an inch thick and two inches square when raw. Results may vary if you make thicker or wider biscuits, or if you make cute shapes with protruding bits.
Problem two solved:
While I'm an improvisational cook, I'm usually a by-the-book baker, because I never feel like I understand the physics involved well enough to improvise. But yesterday, googling around for a recipe for spicy, cheesy biscuits, I was getting unsatisfactory results, so I gave up, pooled the all of the internet's various opinions and my own experiences and prejudices, and came up with this recipe. It resulted in the best biscuits I can remember eating since the after-school "biskies" my mother would make when I was in elementary school and we lived on Dairy Road (our garage was built of stone and seemed ancient to me. I remember being pretty convinced it was an ancient relic of the dairy our street was named for. I realize it was maybe too conveniently car-sized for that to be true). Anyway, in honor of that house, my mother, and dairy products in general:
Dairy Road Biscuits
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick cold butter
3/4 cup cold 1% milk
Preheat the oven to 400°. Mix the dry ingredients together. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients in pats, and then attack it all with a pastry cutter (one of those many-wired tools that looks like a cross between a whisk and a horseshoe with a handle). Some people use two knives for this, some love the food processor, and you can please yourself. Just get it so that the biggest pieces of butter are the size of a bean, and most of them are smaller. Pour the milk into the bowl, and quickly and lightly mix it until it starts to cluster together, with a few stray crumbs. Turn it out, crumbs and all, onto a floured board and pat it into a rough rectangle that's about two inches thick. Fold it in half and press it down to two inches thick again, patting and poking here and there to help it keep a square or rectangular shape. Do this three more times, for a total of four fold-and-flattens. Now flatten it even further, until it's about an inch thick.
Now cut it into biscuits. I just use a sharp knife and cut it into 2" squares, but if you want to cut it into little shapes with cookie cutters, that would probably work too. Whatever method you use, don't saw or twist, just use a firm, definitive downward motion, so that they rise right. Using cookie cutters does have the benefit of leaving you with odd shaped scraps, which can be baked along with the cute shapes and will then need tidying up, which is a duty that traditionally falls to the cook. And sometimes it falls to the the cook along with a cup of tea and a catalog filled with more cute cookie cutter shapes, and the circle of life continues.
If you want to freeze some to bake later, do that now before the butter starts to warm up. Stick the to-be-postponed biscuits on a wax-papered plate or cookie sheet in the freezer. Once they're frozen solid, put them in a freezer bag.
To bake them now, put the biscuits on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes or so (another reason to love biscuits: they're self-greasing!). Once they're done, you can turn off the oven and hold them in there for 10 minutes or so, or until you're almost ready to eat. In the cooling oven, they'll stay hot and keep getting crispier. Out of the oven, they'll just begin their quick trip first to coldness, then to dullness, and then to staleness. Holding them in a basket and a napkin is a good option for during the meal, but the longer you do that, the more they'll steam themselves out of crispness.
Gosh. I sure went on and on, didn't I? Kind of makes it look complicated, doesn't it? Here's the short version:
Preheat the oven to 400°. Mix the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter until the largest pieces are the size of beans. Gently stir in the milk. Turn it out onto a floured board and knead briefly. Roll out to 1" thick, and cut into biscuits. Bake 15 minutes.
That's more like it.
Friday, November 02, 2007
In Search of Delicious Convenience
If you cast your gaze upwards a few jots and read the tag line of my blog, you will see that I am on a never ending quest, which tends to lead me towards ever more delicious foods, but I do have a simultaneous, although secondary, culinary goal on my quest. That secondary goal is efficiency.*
With my desire for efficiency in the kitchen comes an interest in the innovations of the comestible-industrial complex. Too busy to slice your own cheese? They have made slice-like units and wrapped them individually in plastic for you! Too busy to slice your own cheese AND too busy to unwrap those tediously packaged slice-like units? Let the power of the aerosol can assist you! Too busy to make pudding or mashed potatoes or pancakes or tea? Just add water to this powder, and something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike** your requested food will rehydrate itself before your eyes!
Most of these convenience "foods" are chock-full of preservatives and various derivatives of Scary Robot Corn. But a select few are actually (surprisingly) close to their agricultural origins. Instant mashed potatoes, for example, are an acquired taste by themselves (a taste I admit to acquiring during my hot lunch days at Johnson Elementary), but they can be a handy ingredient, and don't have any fake additives, if you buy the right kind (it's in the hippie section). Dehydrated garlic is only, exactly that. It's the dried red pepper flakes of the allium family. None of these things can compete head-to-head with their fresh selves, of course, but if they're not the star element of the meal they make a reasonable substitute.
Instant mashed potato:
invalid food
soup/stew thickener
base for fish cakes
with a roasted chicken from the grocery store, better than pizza delivery
Dehydrated garlic:
sauteed greens
soup
pasta/pizza sauce
Those are all good, sensible uses for convenience ingredients. But you know, you never learn as much succeeding as you do failing. Or at least, once you've failed, you have a sense of how far is Too Far, and you can start retreating until you get back to Delicious. In the interests of educational failure, I pushed my luck and made Asking For Trouble Stew. My goal was stew with no browning, no chopping, and no stirring. I bought pre-cut stew meat, dehydrated garlic, dried onion, and canned tomatoes. And for once, I got the meat at the We Hate Animals grocery store, instead of the We Pat Them On The Head Before We Kill Them store. It seemed disrespectful to use beautiful, healthy meat in a dish I was pretty sure wouldn't be delicious.
2.22 lbs stew meat
2 cups cooked potatoes, leftover
28 oz diced tomatoes
1/2 cup water
2 tsp minced garlic (dried)
1 T chopped onion (dried)
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp rosemary, crushed
2 bay leaves
1 tsp salt
Dump everything into the crock pot. Set it to 6 hours on low. When it's almost done, turn the heat to high and skim the fat. Mix the fat with a tablespoon of flour, mix back into the stew to thicken it. Let it simmer until it thickens. Still not thick enough? Remove and puree the potatoes and mix them back in.
And here are the notes I made after I ate it:
Duh:
if you're not browning or chopping, stack the deck in your favor in other ways: bones, connective tissue, fat, whole spices, flavorful liquid (not water)
Don't use:
lean, pallid meat and water
Try:
skinless chicken thighs, short ribs, oxtails, neck bones
wine, stock, tomatoes
peppercorns, bay leaves, cardamom pods, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, fennel seeds
So the next week, I made black beans with smoked pork neck bones. Much better. Still no chopping or browning. Full report tomorrow.
*Although you'd never guess it after reading that first sentence. Hey, I just finished Pickwick Papers—it's soaking in. Next, I suppose I should self-prescribe some Old Man and The Sea.
**hat tip to another dear departed master of the ridiculous run-on sentence, before whom we all must bow.
With my desire for efficiency in the kitchen comes an interest in the innovations of the comestible-industrial complex. Too busy to slice your own cheese? They have made slice-like units and wrapped them individually in plastic for you! Too busy to slice your own cheese AND too busy to unwrap those tediously packaged slice-like units? Let the power of the aerosol can assist you! Too busy to make pudding or mashed potatoes or pancakes or tea? Just add water to this powder, and something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike** your requested food will rehydrate itself before your eyes!
Most of these convenience "foods" are chock-full of preservatives and various derivatives of Scary Robot Corn. But a select few are actually (surprisingly) close to their agricultural origins. Instant mashed potatoes, for example, are an acquired taste by themselves (a taste I admit to acquiring during my hot lunch days at Johnson Elementary), but they can be a handy ingredient, and don't have any fake additives, if you buy the right kind (it's in the hippie section). Dehydrated garlic is only, exactly that. It's the dried red pepper flakes of the allium family. None of these things can compete head-to-head with their fresh selves, of course, but if they're not the star element of the meal they make a reasonable substitute.
Instant mashed potato:
invalid food
soup/stew thickener
base for fish cakes
with a roasted chicken from the grocery store, better than pizza delivery
Dehydrated garlic:
sauteed greens
soup
pasta/pizza sauce
Those are all good, sensible uses for convenience ingredients. But you know, you never learn as much succeeding as you do failing. Or at least, once you've failed, you have a sense of how far is Too Far, and you can start retreating until you get back to Delicious. In the interests of educational failure, I pushed my luck and made Asking For Trouble Stew. My goal was stew with no browning, no chopping, and no stirring. I bought pre-cut stew meat, dehydrated garlic, dried onion, and canned tomatoes. And for once, I got the meat at the We Hate Animals grocery store, instead of the We Pat Them On The Head Before We Kill Them store. It seemed disrespectful to use beautiful, healthy meat in a dish I was pretty sure wouldn't be delicious.
2.22 lbs stew meat
2 cups cooked potatoes, leftover
28 oz diced tomatoes
1/2 cup water
2 tsp minced garlic (dried)
1 T chopped onion (dried)
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp rosemary, crushed
2 bay leaves
1 tsp salt
Dump everything into the crock pot. Set it to 6 hours on low. When it's almost done, turn the heat to high and skim the fat. Mix the fat with a tablespoon of flour, mix back into the stew to thicken it. Let it simmer until it thickens. Still not thick enough? Remove and puree the potatoes and mix them back in.
And here are the notes I made after I ate it:
Duh:
if you're not browning or chopping, stack the deck in your favor in other ways: bones, connective tissue, fat, whole spices, flavorful liquid (not water)
Don't use:
lean, pallid meat and water
Try:
skinless chicken thighs, short ribs, oxtails, neck bones
wine, stock, tomatoes
peppercorns, bay leaves, cardamom pods, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, fennel seeds
So the next week, I made black beans with smoked pork neck bones. Much better. Still no chopping or browning. Full report tomorrow.
*Although you'd never guess it after reading that first sentence. Hey, I just finished Pickwick Papers—it's soaking in. Next, I suppose I should self-prescribe some Old Man and The Sea.
**hat tip to another dear departed master of the ridiculous run-on sentence, before whom we all must bow.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Every Day. Every. Day.
In the interests of adding another thing to my To Cringe, Put Off, And Feel Guilty About list (some people call it a To Do list, but I find that a bit optimistic), I'm planning to post daily in November. We'll see how long this lasts, shall we?
......
Doesn't that count for today? No? Well then, a bit about dinner. It was one of those good news/bad news kind of meals. Here's the transcript:
Him: What's for dinner?
Me: Crock Pot Curry
Him: Oh boy! Curry!
Me: No, no. Crock Pot Curry. Lower your expectations.
Him: Oh. Is it bad?
Me: Well, the good news is, it was educational, and I gained valuable crock pot experience.
Him: Hmm.
Lessons learned:
1) Don't waste a perfectly good Pepper Puck in the Crock Pot. All it added was a negligible amount of fiber and a sort of a puce color.
2) Crock-potted chicken does not hold up to stirring of any kind. It surrenders into stringy mush at the first sign of a spoon. If you want to thicken and season and make other desperate attempts to salvage dinner, remove the chicken before you address yourself to the remaining glop.
3) Four scallions and a green pepper, chopped and sort of steam/sauteed go a long way towards making puce chickenmush seem edible.
4) Add more curry paste. Add more fish sauce. Add more sugar.
5) Watching The Amazing Mrs Pritchard as you eat, while anti-social and not recommended as a permanent policy, does save you from having to look at the stuff.
6) It worked. I'm neither hungry nor poisoned.
7) Coming in the front door at 7:30 to a house that smells like dinner is ready makes an awful lot of this worth it.
......
Doesn't that count for today? No? Well then, a bit about dinner. It was one of those good news/bad news kind of meals. Here's the transcript:
Him: What's for dinner?
Me: Crock Pot Curry
Him: Oh boy! Curry!
Me: No, no. Crock Pot Curry. Lower your expectations.
Him: Oh. Is it bad?
Me: Well, the good news is, it was educational, and I gained valuable crock pot experience.
Him: Hmm.
Lessons learned:
1) Don't waste a perfectly good Pepper Puck in the Crock Pot. All it added was a negligible amount of fiber and a sort of a puce color.
2) Crock-potted chicken does not hold up to stirring of any kind. It surrenders into stringy mush at the first sign of a spoon. If you want to thicken and season and make other desperate attempts to salvage dinner, remove the chicken before you address yourself to the remaining glop.
3) Four scallions and a green pepper, chopped and sort of steam/sauteed go a long way towards making puce chickenmush seem edible.
4) Add more curry paste. Add more fish sauce. Add more sugar.
5) Watching The Amazing Mrs Pritchard as you eat, while anti-social and not recommended as a permanent policy, does save you from having to look at the stuff.
6) It worked. I'm neither hungry nor poisoned.
7) Coming in the front door at 7:30 to a house that smells like dinner is ready makes an awful lot of this worth it.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Shop! Eat! Feel Self-Righteous!
Dear People Who Are Not From Rhode Island,
Sorry. This one's not so interesting.
Love,
Anna
Dear Rhode Islanders,
I know we just had a frost last night and it seems like everything'll soon be dead and stay that way for ever. Well, it's only partly true. There's a way to preserve at least the illusion that life goes on, even into February and March. I just found out that Farm Fresh Rhode Island is running a winter farmers' market. Just what the lazy eco-geek in me has been pining for! An easy year-round way to eat more locally, with no canning, no weeding, no starting seeds, no wrapping each potato in newspaper! So we can buy eggs, meat, produce (greenhoused or coldframed or stored), and the obligatory locally produced arts and craps, I mean crafts (hey, I'm allowed).
Here's the lowdown:
Saturdays 12-3 pm
December-May
AS220
115 Empire St
Providence
Love,
Anna
PS I'm usually more circumspect about my anonymity, but I figure the chance to browbeat my local readership into some sustainable eating makes outing myself as a citizen of Rhode Island worth it. Just don't expect any embarrassing videos. There's only so much I'm willing to do for the environment.
Sorry. This one's not so interesting.
Love,
Anna
Dear Rhode Islanders,
I know we just had a frost last night and it seems like everything'll soon be dead and stay that way for ever. Well, it's only partly true. There's a way to preserve at least the illusion that life goes on, even into February and March. I just found out that Farm Fresh Rhode Island is running a winter farmers' market. Just what the lazy eco-geek in me has been pining for! An easy year-round way to eat more locally, with no canning, no weeding, no starting seeds, no wrapping each potato in newspaper! So we can buy eggs, meat, produce (greenhoused or coldframed or stored), and the obligatory locally produced arts and craps, I mean crafts (hey, I'm allowed).
Here's the lowdown:
Saturdays 12-3 pm
December-May
AS220
115 Empire St
Providence
Love,
Anna
PS I'm usually more circumspect about my anonymity, but I figure the chance to browbeat my local readership into some sustainable eating makes outing myself as a citizen of Rhode Island worth it. Just don't expect any embarrassing videos. There's only so much I'm willing to do for the environment.
Book Report; Pepper Pucks
This summer, I read Barbara Kingsolver's engaging and hilarious Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and I'm all fired up about local food. If in the future you want to convince me of something, I suggest you have a strategy meeting with Ms. Kingsolver first. Future persuaders, joke about turkey sex. Be both humble and eloquent. Somehow, she makes it look easy.
So, persuaded, I* got almost all our vegetables and a good amount of meat from a CSA at the farmers' market this summer. But since I live in the North, this week is the end of all that, and we expect the tundra to freeze by Wednesday. So, in anticipation of this wholly predictable event, have I spent the last month canning and freezing and drying and pickling? I have not. I have spent the last month traveling, enjoying some unexpected professional upheaval, reading, and messing around on the internet (hello, internet!). I also cleaned the bathroom sink once. I've just been so... busy!
Really, I'm just too lazy to can things this fall, I don't think I'll ever be convinced to buy a dehydrator, and my freezer is already full of... oh, who knows. But I can check off Preserved The Harvest For Winter thanks to this token effort:
Pepper Pucks
12 jalapenos (de-seeded and un-ribified if they're spicier than you want)
2 heads garlic, peeled
3 T oil
Put the peppers and garlic in the food processor and demolish them. Add oil. Drop the resulting paste onto a wax-papered cookie sheet by generous tablespoons-full. Freeze until solid, and then huck them into a freezer bag. It'll make something in the neighborhood of 12 generous tablespoons, so each wad will have one jalapeno and a couple cloves of garlic in it.
If you cook or shop differently than I do, I bet you could tweak these ingredients with good results. I settled on the garlic/jalapeno combination because it'll be flexible (thai, mexican or indian) and because I had local organic garlic and my dad's jalapenos, which are neither local nor organic, but the farmer sharing half your DNA trumps all that. Blood is thicker than petroleum. Or something.
Since this isn't a Real Recipe from a Real Book, I have not yet tested my theory and used one of these pucks, but I figure you can just throw one into a warm pan where it will thaw quickly, and you can proceed with your curry or chili or stir fry from there. If anything dramatic happens, you know I won't be able to resist writing about it here.
*Actually, my dear Vegetable Procurement Agent got all the vegetables and meat, because he needs the car on Tuesdays anyway.
So, persuaded, I* got almost all our vegetables and a good amount of meat from a CSA at the farmers' market this summer. But since I live in the North, this week is the end of all that, and we expect the tundra to freeze by Wednesday. So, in anticipation of this wholly predictable event, have I spent the last month canning and freezing and drying and pickling? I have not. I have spent the last month traveling, enjoying some unexpected professional upheaval, reading, and messing around on the internet (hello, internet!). I also cleaned the bathroom sink once. I've just been so... busy!
Really, I'm just too lazy to can things this fall, I don't think I'll ever be convinced to buy a dehydrator, and my freezer is already full of... oh, who knows. But I can check off Preserved The Harvest For Winter thanks to this token effort:
Pepper Pucks
12 jalapenos (de-seeded and un-ribified if they're spicier than you want)
2 heads garlic, peeled
3 T oil
Put the peppers and garlic in the food processor and demolish them. Add oil. Drop the resulting paste onto a wax-papered cookie sheet by generous tablespoons-full. Freeze until solid, and then huck them into a freezer bag. It'll make something in the neighborhood of 12 generous tablespoons, so each wad will have one jalapeno and a couple cloves of garlic in it.
If you cook or shop differently than I do, I bet you could tweak these ingredients with good results. I settled on the garlic/jalapeno combination because it'll be flexible (thai, mexican or indian) and because I had local organic garlic and my dad's jalapenos, which are neither local nor organic, but the farmer sharing half your DNA trumps all that. Blood is thicker than petroleum. Or something.
Since this isn't a Real Recipe from a Real Book, I have not yet tested my theory and used one of these pucks, but I figure you can just throw one into a warm pan where it will thaw quickly, and you can proceed with your curry or chili or stir fry from there. If anything dramatic happens, you know I won't be able to resist writing about it here.
*Actually, my dear Vegetable Procurement Agent got all the vegetables and meat, because he needs the car on Tuesdays anyway.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Soup is enough.
These days it feels like I have a front-row seat at The Grief and Pain Show. I've watched friends lose loved ones, have loved ones all tubed-up in the ICU, and stand by and watch as loved ones suffer. For now, I'm observing from my inside my bubble of good fortune, surrounded by gifts and lucky coincidences and what seems like the heavens just smiling down benevolently all the time. It makes me feel like I'm being taunted with my friends' pain. Providence (or fate or luck or whatever you might call it) is telling me, "See? One slip of the knife and all this is gone. See what can happen to the kind, good people all around you? Don't get too comfortable, sweetheart." Providence can be a real bitch.
And as an accompaniment to all this life and death, I'm re-reading one of my favorite books, More Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin. I haven't read it in fifteen years, and I hadn't realized until now how influential her essays were when I was learning to cook. Her best recipes get the maximum amount of love and joy into a meal with the least tedium and busywork possible. It feels like I'm reading what I myself would write given more skill, more experience, and a New York Jewish background. But as I re-read and re-discover her book, my enjoyment is colored, knowing that she died suddenly while she was working on it. She was 48, she had a young daughter, and she had a massive heart attack. Another elbow to the ribs from Providence: "See? Any moment."
I am not a proponent of the "everything happens for a reason" and " you get what you give" schools of thought, because when you get right down to it, that says to someone in pain one of two offensive things, maybe both. "You must somehow deserve this" or, "Your pain will bring someone else joy, and it's worth it." I know that I don't deserve my good fortune any more than my friends deserve their pain. Bad things happen to good people. All we can do about it is care for our friends when they get the short end, and let ourselves be cared for when it's us. In the meantime, you can choose every day whether or not to be a jerk, and while choosing not to be a jerk doesn't get you a get-out-of-pain-free card, or a seat at the Eternal Table, it makes your life nicer. It makes everyone's lives nicer. That's all we have, and it's more than enough.
So my strategy is to plant grass, make soup, work hard, and let my close-by grieving friends tell jokes about death and misery. And I'll laugh at their jokes and invite them to take a break from saintly stoicism to be selfish and petty for a bit and then I'll encourage them to order the grilled cheese. For the far-off friends, all I can do is send a note, think of them, wear the bracelet, and know it'll be my turn in the dark soon enough.
So, if you have a moment, reflect on my friends and their loved ones who either are in pain, or have been released from pain. And then go about your day and do your best to avoid being a jerk. It's easier some days than others.
Ann's sister
Ethel's husband
Ann's niece
Lesley's husband
Maggie's child
Pat's husband
Bev's son
Carter's mother
And as an accompaniment to all this life and death, I'm re-reading one of my favorite books, More Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin. I haven't read it in fifteen years, and I hadn't realized until now how influential her essays were when I was learning to cook. Her best recipes get the maximum amount of love and joy into a meal with the least tedium and busywork possible. It feels like I'm reading what I myself would write given more skill, more experience, and a New York Jewish background. But as I re-read and re-discover her book, my enjoyment is colored, knowing that she died suddenly while she was working on it. She was 48, she had a young daughter, and she had a massive heart attack. Another elbow to the ribs from Providence: "See? Any moment."
I am not a proponent of the "everything happens for a reason" and " you get what you give" schools of thought, because when you get right down to it, that says to someone in pain one of two offensive things, maybe both. "You must somehow deserve this" or, "Your pain will bring someone else joy, and it's worth it." I know that I don't deserve my good fortune any more than my friends deserve their pain. Bad things happen to good people. All we can do about it is care for our friends when they get the short end, and let ourselves be cared for when it's us. In the meantime, you can choose every day whether or not to be a jerk, and while choosing not to be a jerk doesn't get you a get-out-of-pain-free card, or a seat at the Eternal Table, it makes your life nicer. It makes everyone's lives nicer. That's all we have, and it's more than enough.
So my strategy is to plant grass, make soup, work hard, and let my close-by grieving friends tell jokes about death and misery. And I'll laugh at their jokes and invite them to take a break from saintly stoicism to be selfish and petty for a bit and then I'll encourage them to order the grilled cheese. For the far-off friends, all I can do is send a note, think of them, wear the bracelet, and know it'll be my turn in the dark soon enough.
So, if you have a moment, reflect on my friends and their loved ones who either are in pain, or have been released from pain. And then go about your day and do your best to avoid being a jerk. It's easier some days than others.
Ann's sister
Ethel's husband
Ann's niece
Lesley's husband
Maggie's child
Pat's husband
Bev's son
Carter's mother
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